On decorating for Christmas

When I was growing up, decorating for Christmas used to happen at the start of the school holidays. Or that's what I recall, anyway. My parents had a real Christmas tree for many years, so wanted it to last until it was taken down on January 6th. And since they used to host Christmas Day for the whole family even after I was married, Richard and I didn't have a tree for some years.

However when our sons were small we bought an artificial tree; I think it was in 1989 when Daniel was three, and very insistent that we should have our own tree. So he and Richard went out on Christmas Eve... but the only real trees they could find were either very scraggy, or enormous and very expensive. So they compromised with a fake tree, pointing out that if we used it for more than one year it would be good value. Thirty-five years later, we still have that tree. We didn't take it to Colorado when we lived there for two years, and we didn't have it here in Cyprus for our first few years. But it's probably had thirty Christmases. 

Since we were home educating in Cyprus, there was no obvious time to put up the tree and other decorations each year. So it was somewhat random. If we were hosting a Christmas party early in December, we would decorate before that event. If not, it was sometimes left until a day or two before Christmas. When the boys had grown up and left home, we didn't feel much like decorating at all, but usually managed to host local friends (and for many years Tim came home). 

In the past thirteen years, our friends' three daughters have helped put up our tree at some point in December. Thirteen years ago, when the oldest of them was six, and the youngest just two, the adults did most of the work, and the hanging of decorations was a bit ragged, so I adjusted everything after they had left.

But it made a tradition. In 2018, for instance, they managed most of it themselves. 

The date of putting up the tree has gradually become earlier in recent years. Since we take everything down around January 5th, I quite like having decorations up for at least four weeks. So in the past couple of years, we've decorated around Advent Sunday. And despite our young friends now being teenagers of 19, 16 and 14, this is still an important tradition for them. 

They put the tree together rapidly and efficiently, then open the decoration boxes to decide which baubles and other decorations they will use. 

The Roomba is now situated in the place where we used to have our tree, so we haven't quite determined the best place for it. But this year we decided to have it next to the DVD bookcases. 

We had already bought a poinsettia and placed it in the usual spot where they seem to thrive, despite our record of killing indoor plants:

And, as I have done for several years now, I hung last year's Christmas cards up across the doors between our living room and dining room: 

Many people no longer send cards (postage prices from the UK are horrendous) but those that do arrive usually get here in the last few days before Christmas, or the first couple of weeks of the new year. So I always keep them to display the following year.

On the table, our knitted nativity set was displayed, this time with the baby conveniently hidden inside Mary's skirts during advent:

I no longer have to do any rearranging of the tree. Our young friends are artistic and competent, and the result was just as I hoped: